August 12, 2010

I know, I know... posts about writing don't get a lot of traction. But I am experimenting with drunkenness to see if we can hit a certain note.

I knew that might spark your interest.

The other night I came home from work and drank too much for a reason. This thing I'm writing is in first person and I want it to begin with the character talking about/to all the people who dismissed him all through his life. And I wanted it to be mean. The problem is - though everybody's got a few folks like that in their history - this kind of person doesn't carry a lot of weight with me. I have a personality that's sort of like... "you think I'm nothing? OK - you're in the negatives, asshole." And then I just drop them.

I don't believe - I have never believed - in letting that brand of negativity get you down (ha- I rely on a lesser brand of it to get to me. Shutup.)

So I drank a little more than usual and after dinner I came up here and tried to remember all the people who had - and probably still have - a negative view of my abilities, personality or whatever.

Jesus I got a big damn list!

But anyhow... the next step was to tell them off. Tell them off all in one bunch. Let it rip. Go for the throat.

So now, in a minute or so, I'm going to (soberly) rewrite that section to make it readable cuz - y'know - it's not making too much sense right about here. I guess you could call this "method" writing.

We'll see if it works.

UPDATE: I don't think my drinking experiment worked like I wanted it to. I rattled off maybe seven or eight paragraphs, and I mean I let it rip, and when I went back (sober) to do the planned rewrite I couldn't understand it. It really needed to be edited and honed and brought down to something people reading it would get. I suppose it felt good to let a few people have it without naming names, but I can't remember.

It's better now. The only thing the session did is it solved two problems. It gave me an opening that finally stands up to my tests (which I haven't had all through up to now), and also provided me with a closing line. So it wasn't a total loss.